This mix has been brewing in my head for the last couple of years. Basically I've been planning a follow up to the Luminouspaces mix since I posted it in 2016. I finally got going on the sequel a few weeks ago while listening to "Constellations" by Jane Antonia Cornish. It's an absolutely lovely album. If you like modern classical recordings you'll definitely enjoy it.

The mix begins and ends with a track from Constellations. In between you'll find a collection of modern classical favorites from the last year or two. Like a lot of my mixes, it's a beautiful compilation with a tinge of melancholy.

I digitized my music collection a long time ago. I have a Sonos system throughout my house so I digitized thousands of CDs and packed up the physical copies. I haven't pulled out the actual CDs in a long time but recently I rearranged some furniture and realized that I had sofa table with a cd rack built into it. The thing had been in the same place for so long that I'd forgotten there were CDs in it. I played a bunch of the discs and had a good time re-discovering music that I hadn't heard in quite awhile.

So I made a mix of some my favs. The release years range from 2003 - 2012. There are some regulars that have appeared in many of my mixes - The Green Kingdom, Kyle Bobby Dunn, Maps & Diagrams, From The Mouth Of The Sun. Along with some that I've probably never used - Shirk, Lopside, Relmic Statute, Logreybeam, Herion.

The album, 37, by Lopside was especially cool to reacquaint myself with. It falls into the Boards of Canada, Casino versus Japan category but it's not very well known. It was great to get back into it. Here is the link to Spotify...

I've been listening to both of these albums at night since they were released. Both are excellent. They serve as bookends on this 86 minute long sleep mix. Check 'em out & then check the mix. Or check out the mix then check out the albums. Or play all three simultaneously to really blow your mind(probably a bad idea actually).

One of my favorite discoveries late last year was the album In Currents by Innesti. It's a wonderful combination of field recordings, loops, drones and light touches. I put it on my second Best of 2018 mix.

Innesti has a new album coming out on Feb. 25th and we are lucky to have a preview of it on this guest mix he has created.The mix stays true to the Innesti sound - gentle, calming, floating. I am excited to hear the new album and excited for this sneak peak.

You know how when you see a certain director is involved with a film, like Christopher Nolan, you just know it'll be interesting. Or how music released on certain labels, such as 12k, will definitely be worth exploring. Well, that's how I feel when the tag "Curated by Paul Asbury Seaman" is attached to a mix.

Paul & I have collaborated on several mixes and all have been excellent. It's only Feb. 10th and already we've been treated to two of Paul's mixes. This one is a bit of a departure for him, using pieces that are, like the title says, long-form drones. For me droning ambient can be very hit & miss. This mix is definitely a hit.

Here's what Paul says about it:

“Most of us have contemplated the seemingly contradictory opposites that are a fundamental aspect of reality: good and evil, joy and pain, love and hate, our inner world and infinite space. But this ying/yang, male/female, fire/water dichotomy obscures the fact that much of life is lived in the in-between, in the places where light and dark overlap. Perhaps one reason so many people find calm and inspiration at the beach is its liminal quality—between the ocean and the land. In this mix I give you 71 minutes in that mysterious clarity between trance and tranquility.”

The inspiration for this mix came from Mike Lazarev of Headphone Commute. Last year he discovered an old hard drive with some of his old mixes from around 2006. Called fiftmuziek sessions, he posted some online and you can find them here...

They focus on classic IDM & ambient electronica from that era & they are fantastic.

One of the mixes that Mike uncovered from that same time period featured albums from Native State artists Rena Jones and Shen. I fell in love with this mix. I played it non-stop for a few weeks and I knew that at some point I'd make a mix that used some of those tunes. Here is Mike's mix titles Resplendent...

My mix, The Passing Storm, takes its name from the track by Rena Jones which opens the mix. The sound is classic IDM. Most of the tunes are from 2001 - 2007 with the exception of the Autechre & Plastikman cuts. Even though "Bike" is 10 years older I just couldn't do an IDM mix without Autechre.

I am very happy with how this mix turned out. I'll definitely have to crank out another one later this year.

Also, just a quick reminder that there is now an easy way to support me & the artists in these mixes. It's called Mixcloud Select and you can find out more here...

We were having such a nice mild winter here in Wisconsin but then I had to go and jinx it in the last post in which I said we hadn't very much snow. Well, since then we've had two significant snow storms with another 12 inches expected over the next two days.

Snow I can handle but the temps have plummeted - the high temp yesterday was 4° with wind chills around -25°. Ugh. But it gets worse - Wednesday's high temp is supposed to be -14°! That's the high temperature! So much for our nice mild winter. I'm getting too old for this!

I had an IDM mix all ready to post but the frigid landscape was calling for a frozen mix. Most of the tracks are new, 2017 & 2018. And every track has an appropriate cold word in the title. Such as winter, frozen, wind, ice, cold, arctic, snow, etc.

I recommend listening with a cup of hot tea nearby or better yet a large glass of scotch.

It keep popping up on a few of my playlists and I always thought it had kind of kraut rock feel to it. I realized that I've never made a kraut rock mix and that needs to be rectified.

I don't want to get into a debate about what is and isn't kraut rock. There are tracks from kraut rock classics like Neu! and Can. But there are also three cuts from new artists like Dan Lissvik, Sankt Otten and Kilchhofer. Those new tunes are in there because I thought they fit with the kraut rock vibe.

The rest of the mix contains artists like Cluster, Ashra, Popol Vuh, Holger Czukay, Conrad Schnitzler, Bernard Szajner and Gunter Schickert. I'm exactly sure which ones would qualify as kraut rock but I think they're all close enough.

This is the perfect mix to close out 2018 and look forward to 2019. "Turning Hopeful" has a more hopeful, positive vibe than most of my mixes. Which is why it should be no surprise to find out that it was curated by the one and only Paul Asbury Seaman.

I like working together with Paul because he takes mixes in slightly different directions than I usually do. These collaborations bring a nice breath of fresh air to this 12 year old mix blog.

Here's what Paul says about this mix:

"This mix features melodic ambient tracks with a hopeful feeling, including some early New Age classics guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Also, brand new tracks from Byron Metcalf and Remote Vision, a solo project of Don Tyler (Ascendant). The theme was inspired by the title song from John Hiatt’s 1988 album, “Slow Turning.” Redemption means turning from one way of being to embrace another, a recurring process, fueled by hope."